As the number of families with two working parents increases, so has the reliance of the typical family on food prepared outside the home by establishments, such as restaurants. An obvious extension of convenience from stopping on the way home to pick up a meal from a restaurant is delivery of the food, by the restaurant, from the restaurant to a home. Yet, despite the proliferation of so-called "delivery" and "take out" items and services, mechanisms for effectively transporting the prepared food from one location to another have changed little over the past several decades. Referring to a familiar example, this lack of innovation in the food transportation industry is readily apparent.
No item of food is delivered to more American homes in greater quantities than the pizza. As the business of pushing pizzas exceeds the 32 billion dollar mark annually in the United States alone, multitudes of both multi-national and local establishments vie for their "slice" of the action. The resulting competition is, of course, good for the consumer. In fact, the palates of today's pizza consumers have become accustomed to their favorite food being brick oven baked, deep dished, double cheese-filled crusted and covered with everything from pineapple to chicken to jalapeno peppers. By any standard, today's home-delivered creation is a vast improvement over the boxed mix your mother made and covered with dehydrated cheese 25 years ago.
At it's very best, though, a pizza delivered to your door pales in comparison to the same pizza served at a pizzeria. Apart from the ambiance of the red-checkered tablecloth and the spectacle of dough-tossing, pizzeria pizza is far superior because it has not suffered delivery deterioration.
The industry standard delivery time, pizza-to-door, is 30 minutes. The journey begins when the fresh, crisp-crusted, bubbling-cheese delicacy is removed from the oven and placed flat in the bottom of a box. Typically, the box is of the square, brown cardboard variety and may have a circular piece of reinforcing cardboard under the pizza to bolster its bottom. Then, the pizza is cut with a circular or "wheel" cutter. The box is closed, stacked on other pizza boxes and, when delivered, is sometimes placed in an insulating bag. The delivery driver tosses the bag into a delivery vehicle and makes the appointed rounds. It is during this journey that delivery deterioration occurs.
Unaware of the deterioration, the arrival of the pizza is met eagerly by the hungry hoarde. As the driver removes the pizza box from the bag, the aroma makes mouths water. Anticipation builds as the box is opened, revealing a pizza that is, by and large, similar in appearance to one a waiter would serve in the pizzeria. As the pieces are served, though, the toils of the pizza's travel become evident.
First, the pieces are difficult to separate. Pizza cutting tools typically comprise a wheel, sharp on its edge, rotatably attached to a handle. The pizza maker applies pressure to the wheel via the handle, causing the wheel to roll across the diameter of the pizza. As the wheel rolls, the pizza is cut by the sharp edge of the wheel. Round pizza cutters cannot conform to the 90 degree angle defined by the corner of the box. Accordingly, cutters of this type are unable to cut through the outer edge of the pizza at the point where the edge is closest to each side of the box. Extrication of the pizza typically requires tearing or additional cutting of at least some of the pieces.
Second, as that first piece is lifted eagerly to the mouth, it bends helplessly earthward. During transportation, the pizza crust has lost the rigid, crispy texture it had only 30 minutes earlier. The explanation for this is simple. As the steamy hot pizza is removed from the oven and placed in the box, it continues to give off moisture until it has cooled sufficiently. The standard cardboard box, though not perfectly airtight, retains substantially all of the moisture given off by the pizza. In essence, the pizza sits in a steam sauna during delivery. The final result is that the driest portion of the pizza (the crust) absorbs moisture and becomes limp.
Interestingly, the problem of moisture trapped within the pizza box has been previously addressed, though unsuccessfully. Pizza boxes have been constructed of absorbent material, such as certain semi-porous fibers. While such boxes removed some moisture from the trapped air, they were unable to remove enough moisture to maintain the pizza in a firm, fresh state. Additionally, some of these boxes, after absorbing large amounts of moisture, then lose their rigidity. In any event, the moisture problem has yet to be solved satisfactorily.
The final major component of pizza delivery deterioration is, to many, the single most significant problem with all food deliveries. As mentioned previously, the aroma and appearance of a delivered pizza differs little from its fresh counterpart. The first bite of the first piece reveals, however, the familiar and unmistakable taste of cardboard. Virtually all pizza boxes are brown. Almost all brown pizza boxes contain recycled paper. A sizable percentage of the recycled paper is newsprint. Well known to those in the packaging industry is the fact that the familiar and begrudgingly tolerated "taste" of cardboard originates from the newsprint used to make the cardboard. Nonetheless, solutions to this problem have not yet been effectively implemented.
Accordingly, there is a need for a food transportation container which will maintain the food in a freshly-cooked state during delivery of the food from its point of origin to its destination.
There is a further need for such a container which will not impart undesirable taste to its contents.
Finally, there is a need for a container which will not impede proper cutting of the food which could result in difficulty serving the food.